MChamp
New Member
I've got a musty, stale smell coming from the downstairs powder room in my house and can't seem to identify the source. I first noticed the smell in summer of last year but it wasn't too bad, just caught a whiff of something every once in a while when walking by the room. After it didn't go away for a while, I did some troubleshooting to try to figure out it and wasn't able to identify the source. The smell eventually faded away almost entirely, so I stopped worrying about it. However, over the last few days it's come back with a vengeance, and now I really need to figure out where it's coming from so I can take care of it.
The room is a small powder room, about 5'x5' with a toilet and a sink. There is no window, but has a ceiling exhaust fan and a floor HVAC vent. Floors are hard wood, with crawl space below. There's a bedroom directly above, and it's surrounded on all sides by the kitchen, pantry, office, and hallway. None of the adjoining rooms have any smell. When I leave the door to the bathroom closed for a while then open it, the scent is a lot worse, so I know it's coming from the bathroom. I can't identify a specific place the smell is coming from when I try to sniff individual parts of the bathroom, it's kind of diffuse throughout. It sorta smells like sewer gas, but I'm not expert on the small.
Things I have done to evaluate this so far that have not fixed the problem:
-Cleaned the floors, walls, and fixtures in the bathroom thoroughly
-Checked the sink p-trap for leaks, made sure it's holding water (it is)
-Pulled up the toilet and replaced the wax ring
-Sealed off the floor vent with plastic sheeting/tape
-Pulled all of the insulation down from below the floor in the crawlspace, found some mice droppings but no dead animals
I had a plumber come out way back when it first started after the above didn't get me an answer. He couldn't smell anything at the time, but the scent had mostly resolved by then. He did a quick inspection of the pipes in the crawlspace and didn't find anything.
We have had some problems with mice, so I worry about a dead rodent in the walls or below the floor, but I didn't find anything in the crawl space and it doesn't really smell bad when I'm down there. If there was something dead in the walls, I would think I would be able to smell it from one of the adjoining rooms. I sealed off the vent to see if maybe there was something dead in the HVAC system that was blowing the smell into the room, but that didn't change anything.
Pretty often when the sinks are draining from anywhere in the house I hear that "glug, glug" sound of water not draining smoothly, but it's delayed by several seconds after shutting off the water and sounds like it's coming from a distance rather than the p-trap directly below the sink.
We have had problems with squirrels/birds nesting in our chimney - I wonder if they might be in our sewage vent pipes as well? Could obstruction of the vent pipe cause such a problem? Would I expect to have problems in other rooms as well if the vent pipes were a problem?
I feel like it's coming from the toilet, but I could certainly be wrong. Can smells come up from the sewer pipe below even if the toilet is well sealed and the bowl is full of water?
I might have to call the plumber out again now that the smell is back and stronger, but I was hoping I might get some guidance on where the problem might be before I do that so that it might be a more useful visit this time.
Thanks!
The room is a small powder room, about 5'x5' with a toilet and a sink. There is no window, but has a ceiling exhaust fan and a floor HVAC vent. Floors are hard wood, with crawl space below. There's a bedroom directly above, and it's surrounded on all sides by the kitchen, pantry, office, and hallway. None of the adjoining rooms have any smell. When I leave the door to the bathroom closed for a while then open it, the scent is a lot worse, so I know it's coming from the bathroom. I can't identify a specific place the smell is coming from when I try to sniff individual parts of the bathroom, it's kind of diffuse throughout. It sorta smells like sewer gas, but I'm not expert on the small.
Things I have done to evaluate this so far that have not fixed the problem:
-Cleaned the floors, walls, and fixtures in the bathroom thoroughly
-Checked the sink p-trap for leaks, made sure it's holding water (it is)
-Pulled up the toilet and replaced the wax ring
-Sealed off the floor vent with plastic sheeting/tape
-Pulled all of the insulation down from below the floor in the crawlspace, found some mice droppings but no dead animals
I had a plumber come out way back when it first started after the above didn't get me an answer. He couldn't smell anything at the time, but the scent had mostly resolved by then. He did a quick inspection of the pipes in the crawlspace and didn't find anything.
We have had some problems with mice, so I worry about a dead rodent in the walls or below the floor, but I didn't find anything in the crawl space and it doesn't really smell bad when I'm down there. If there was something dead in the walls, I would think I would be able to smell it from one of the adjoining rooms. I sealed off the vent to see if maybe there was something dead in the HVAC system that was blowing the smell into the room, but that didn't change anything.
Pretty often when the sinks are draining from anywhere in the house I hear that "glug, glug" sound of water not draining smoothly, but it's delayed by several seconds after shutting off the water and sounds like it's coming from a distance rather than the p-trap directly below the sink.
We have had problems with squirrels/birds nesting in our chimney - I wonder if they might be in our sewage vent pipes as well? Could obstruction of the vent pipe cause such a problem? Would I expect to have problems in other rooms as well if the vent pipes were a problem?
I feel like it's coming from the toilet, but I could certainly be wrong. Can smells come up from the sewer pipe below even if the toilet is well sealed and the bowl is full of water?
I might have to call the plumber out again now that the smell is back and stronger, but I was hoping I might get some guidance on where the problem might be before I do that so that it might be a more useful visit this time.
Thanks!
